Winston Peters

[Giant Communist Robot]

Flamboyant, colorful, Controversial--was this guy left wing or right? Or both? I get the feeling he'll be back.

[dai bread]

You're not referring to our ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, are you?

Everybody here expects him to be back, too. He is our Teflon Tony. He's done a good job, really. Apparently he's well thought of by his counterparts in other countries, by Condi Rice for instance, who is about the same colour. (Winston is part Maori).

As for his wings, right or left, there's only one- the Winston Peters wing. His natural home is the centre-right National Party, but he fell out with them and established his own NZ First party, which went into coalition with the centre-left Labour party when that party won power in 1999. Under this damn-fool MMP system we got lumbered with, the tail wags the dog. It's pretty well impossible to form a government of one party, so you get these minor parties exercising power way out of proportion to their popular vote. That's how Winston got the Foreign Affairs job. It's how he got the Treasurer's job when National was in office earlier.

It's also how we've been saddled with arch-Privatiser Sir Roger Douglas. (Knighted for services to merchant bankers and "business" men in the mid-1980s). I'm thinking of emigrating to Australia.

[Giant Communist Robot]

You're not referring to our ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, are you?

I am. We get news here from Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia, so we have heard about Peters. How'd that election go for you, anyway?

[dai bread]

Not all that well.

While I'm glad to see the back of Clark and Cullen, who had become very arrogant, power-hungry and self-serving, I have to admit they did a good job of running the country. The new mob, the National Party, are led by an ex-merchant banker by the name of John Key. He made millions for himself as bankers did until recently, and came home to further his career. I will be charitable at this stage and say he wants to serve his country, but if he truly wants that it will be a first, at least in my lifetime.

I know nothing of what the new govt. plans to do, except that Privatisation is back on the agenda. Key has promised not to sell any State assets "in the first term", but not thereafter. I'm not doctrinaire on the subject of State ownership of trading entities, but some people are, notably Sir Roger Douglas, who I referred to in my previous post. He, and others like him, want to sell State assets regardless of the price obtainable, simply because they believe the State has no business in business. I regard the State as just another owner, and expect it to behave accordingly.

The last round of Privatisations, in the 1990s, resulted in the taxpayer having to pump large sums into Air NZ and Railways, and others that I can't think of just now, and has left us with what must be the world's worst broadband service as dividends were stripped out of Telecom, which used to be the telephone branch of the State-owned Post Office, and the phone system was allowed to become out-dated. This while the boss was paid $3 000 000 p.a. and the share price fell from $8 to $4. (It's now down to about $2.50).

I might add that the silly MMP system gave Sir Roger's party, ACT, 5 seats in Parliament for 3.75% of the vote, whereas NZ First, which got 4.something, was consigned to oblivion because they didn't win an electorate seat. ACT did get an electorate seat. Only one, thank goodness.

So you see, I'm not very happy about the outcome of this election. One interesting thing though- America went Left; we went Right. Are we about to meet, I wonder?